[Footnote 100: As early as 1676, Dryden confesses that he had grown weary of "his long-loved mistress, Rhyme." See the prologue to "Aureng-Zebe," the last rhyming tragedy which he ever wrote. See Vol. V. p. 188. But although Dryden sometimes chose to abandon his own opinions, there is no instance of his owning conversion by the arguments of his adversaries.] [Footnote 101: The tragedy of "Pompey the Great," 4to, 1664, translated out of French by certain persons of honour. Waller wrote the first act; Lord Buckhurst, it would seem, translated the fourth.] [Footnote 102: Valerius Maximus, Lib. IV. Cap. 5.] [Footnote 103: "Poem to the King's most sacred Majesty."--_D'Avenant's Works_, folio, 1673, p. 268.] [Footnote 104: See the dedication to the "Rival Ladies," which is elaborately written in the cause of Rhyme against Blank Verse. Vol. II. p. 113.] TO THE READER. The drift of the ensuing discourse was chiefly to vindicate the honour of our English writers, from the censure of those who unjustly prefer the French before them. This I intimate, lest any should think me so exceeding vain, as to teach others an art which they understand much better than myself. But if this incorrect Essay, written in the country without the help of books, or advice of friends, shall find any acceptance in the world, I promise to myself a better success of the Second Part, wherein I shall more fully treat of the virtues and faults of the English poets, who have written either in this, the epic, or the lyric way.[105] FOOTNOTE: [Footnote 105: This promise our author never fully performed; although the "Essay on Epic Poetry," and other parts of his critical works, exhibit the materials of the proposed Second Part.] AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY. It was that memorable day, in the first summer of the late war, when our navy engaged the Dutch;[106] a day wherein the two most mighty and best appointed fleets which any age had ever seen, disputed the command of the greater half of the globe, the commerce of nations, and the riches of the universe: while these vast floating bodies, on either side, moved against each other in parallel lines, and our countrymen, under the happy conduct of his Royal Highness,[107] went breaking, by little and little, into the line of the enemies; the noise of the cannon from both navies reached our ears about the city; so that all men being alarmed with it, and in a dreadful suspense of the event, which they knew was then deciding, every one went following the sound as his fancy led him; and leaving the town almost empty, some took towards the Park, some cross the river, others down it; all seeking the noise in the depth of silence.